Throughout the better part of the past decade, Andrew Watt (who performs as WATT, stylized in all caps, for his solo work) has collaborated with one superstar artist after the next, working across several genres and compiling several No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 along the way. Last year alone, he picked up writing or producing credits — and often both — for the likes of Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Elton John, Maroon 5, Young Thug and more. He also won his first Grammy that March for producer of the year, non-classical.
“When you’re working in so many different types of music, you don’t get bored,” Watt tells Billboard. “A lot of producers can fall into a formula or a certain sound, and I have been there myself, but when you working with a completely different type of artist, you can break that mold.”
And after producing the entirety of Eddie Vedder’s Earthling, released in February, he recently landed two genre-bending hits on the Hot 100 in The Kid LAROI’s “Thousand Miles” and Ed Sheeran and Lil Baby’s “2step.” A co-writer and co-producer on both, the former debuted at No. 15 and is expected to appear on LAROI’s debut studio album, while the latter is a remixed version of the track that appeared on Sheeran’s 2021 full-length, =.
Below, Watt reflects on what it’s like to be in the studio with LAROI, the unifying principle in working on hits across genres, how remixes get treated “like a new record” and more.
How did “Thousand Miles” come together?
LAROI came over to my house a year ago and we were messing around, and then he was like, “I really love your guitar playing, is there any way you could just give me something on the guitar?” I said, “I actually just wrote this riff the other day, what do you think of this?” He was like, “That’s the sh-t right there, just put that on and let me go.” So, I put it down [and] he did this whole amazing thing that just flew out of him — words, melodies, immediately.
We got the initial thing down, and then I started going through chord changes because I thought it was so cool the way [that] he was singing. A lot of music in that genre is one loop and one chord progression, and I really enjoy making music like that because the beat becomes hypnotic and it’s really on what the singer or rapper is saying that creates the lifts and takeoffs. But I just started telling myself, “How cool would it be if there was a song in this kind of genre that really changes chords?” So, he had this one part and then I started coming up with this other chord sequence, and we went through it together to kind of get the melodies to be a thing that made sense. He did another scan and it was like, that was the melody of the song right there. All the way through. It kind of took on this modern Oasis type of thing — I hadn’t heard anything like that before.
I took it over to [co-producer/co-writer] Louis Bell — he’s one of my main collaborators — [and] we did the production together. And then, me, LAROI, [co-writer] Billy Walsh and Lou got together and crafted lyrics together until we had something that we really felt was great. It was so funny — that initial thing and the melody was instant, and then we really spent our time writing lyrics [over] a few sessions. Different parts of the process fly out and others have to be a longer thing. It’s always different. No one song is ever made the same.
What is it like to be in the studio with LAROI?
He’s very special, and he’s really wise for his age. I completely forget how young he is when we’re together. I think when you’re spending time with someone and you’re in a creative environment, the most important thing — at least for me — is [that] there’s kindness and openness. And he is both of those things. He’s such a positive, positive guy, even when he’s singing about something that he doesn’t feel positive about. I just play him guitar parts until he feels like, That is something I feel emotional from. [Then he] gets on the mic, and he just goes and it’s amazing. Sometimes it’s four minutes; sometimes it’s ten; sometimes it’s 20 minutes. But within that 20 minutes of stuff, there is a perfect song.
You mentioned Louis Bell as one of your main collaborators. Tell me about your working relationship with him.
I love Louis. He’s my partner in crime and one of my closest friends as well. We do such opposite things that it’s really cool when we get together — we make a certain type of music that I don’t think anyone else could make because it’s a true collaboration between two different sides of the brain. He could make a song 100% himself from the ground up, from the drums to the instruments to the vocals to the melodies to the lyrics, but when we get together, it turns into this other thing. I play a bunch of instruments and it’s almost like I’m getting sampled — we’re collaborating together on drum patterns and his sounds, and he’ll take my stuff and f–k it up and make it sound like [something] you’ve never heard before. We have a lot of fun as we’re doing it. You know, at a certain point, if it’s not fun, there’s no point.
As someone with multiple hits on the Hot 100 currently — and a hand in some of the biggest hits of the past few years — what sounds do you think are currently driving mainstream music?
I cannot answer that question. All I can say is that I am dedicated to putting real instruments, chord changes [and] human-feeling recordings in mainstream music, and I will keep trying to do it until the end of time for me. That’s what I want out of music, and I’m so lucky to get to collaborate with artists that allow me to add that to their music.
As someone with huge, genre-spanning collaborations, are there any big similarities or differences in terms of producing rap vs. rock vs. pop?
Every artist is different. It’s not about you — it’s about the artist. So, it’s like, what serves that artist? What’s going to be the best thing? The drums that I would put in a record for Young Thug are going to be completely different than the drums I would put in a song for Eddie Vedder, right? They’re completely different, but at the core, it’s good chord changes and good music that inspire a singer or a rapper to get emotional and deliver something that people want to sing along to.
When you’re working in so many different types of music, you don’t get bored. You’re pulling from [and] getting inspired by different things. You’re falling into a different rhythm. You’re making music in a different formula. A lot of producers can fall into a formula or a certain sound, and I have been there myself, but when you work with a completely different type of artist, you can break that mold. When you’re working with a truly great artist, they fuel you. You’re taking the energy that they’re giving you and you’re creating off of that. And that’s the great thing about music in our art form. It’s truly collaborative.
Is there any genre that you haven’t had the opportunity to explore yet that you’d like to try your hand at?
I just have artists that I really love working with. I feel like genres are not as much as of a thing as they used to be. I feel like we’re combining genres every day. Both [for] “2step” and “Thousand Miles,” you can’t just put them in one box.
“2step” first hit the Hot 100 after the arrival of its Lil Baby remix. As a producer, how in the know are you when something like that is coming?
I was involved every step of the way with that and went back-and-forth with Baby’s camp and Ed [Sheeran]. You have to reinvent the record; you gotta create new space. You gotta add a new layer that makes it sound exciting and like something new and carve around Baby, instead of just carving around Ed. We treated it like a new record.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by needing to carving out space for Lil Baby instead of just for Ed Sheeran?
Well, it’s not really as much of a difference between Ed and Lil Baby as it is just any artist. When you have a song with one singer on it, their voice takes up a certain frequency and once you get it sitting in the right place, you’re pretty much flying. But when you’re doing a duet, and you have a different character and tone come in, you have to do things that really compliment that artist and what they’re trying to get to come across. For example, the 808s are louder when Baby comes in, and there is extra sub bass that comes in. There are a few drops in places where we cut the drums to shine a light on certain lines that he’s saying [to] make you focus on more of the vocal. It’s all little things like that.
How hard is it to return to a song for a remix after stepping away form the original for a period of time and having it out in the world? Is there anything that you hear on the original where you feel like ‘oh, I wish that was in there,’ that you can sneak into a remix?
Always. I can’t even listen to my own music once it comes out because I would change it 8 billion times over. That’s what it’s like when you’re in this thing: more time would always be great. That’s the common torture of being a producer, I think. You hear your record and you’re like, “F–k, I could’ve done that!”
At least you get something of an extended window when you’re working on a remix though, right?
It’s f–king great when you can make a song that’s simple. There’s not much going in “2step”: it’s a guitar, an 808, drums and a couple of high frequency sounds and Ed. That’s it. The vocal is doing so much that we just kept it really simple around him.
He seems to have a great way of doing that.
Ed wrote three songs the day that we wrote [“2step”]. Three full songs that are finished. I can’t talk about what’s happening with the other two yet, all I can say is the guy is a force. A true force. He’s like getting ready for a sporting event — it’s athletic songwriting. He’s f–king incredible. When you’re a producer, what more could you ask for? You have someone with that kind of energy around you, you’re going to make great music. When someone comes in and is free-flowing, you just gotta press record and hold on.
A version of this story originally appeared in the May 14, 2022, issue of Billboard.